If you’re running the Gnome desktop environment and would like to have GnuPG context menu options in Nautilus to encrypt, decrypt, and digitally sign files, simply install the Seahorse plugins package available in your favorite Linux distribution repositories. If using Debian or Ubuntu, it’s as easy as an apt-get install.

sudo apt-get install seahorse-plugins

After installing the package, go to System -> Preferences -> Encryption and Keyrings, select a default key to use and decide whether you want to include your own key by default when encrypting files. This is sometimes a good idea if you ever want to open a file you encrypted to someone else. Below are some screenshots of the Seahorse preferences.

Here are some screen shots of the context menu options that appear when you right click on files in Nautilus.

When you choose to encrypt a file, you can select as many public keys as you’d like. Here’s an example of the dialogue.

Using PGP has never been easier. There are still some improvements to the UI I would like to see completed, but overall the most important features are there.